


Close Encounters

by Mendeia



Series: Through The Looking Glass [3]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghost Hunters, Gen, Oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 09:42:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14850386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mendeia/pseuds/Mendeia
Summary: "Please." Sophie leaned forward attentively. "Take your time."Hardison glared at her, but turned on his camera and perched behind his current favorite laptop to take notes as well."Start with your name," he suggested. "Where we are. The basics."Sophie sent Hardison a look that suggested she would have kicked him if she weren't on the sofa beside the client.





	Close Encounters

**Author's Note:**

> Truthfully, this is the second story that really made me think I might someday do sequels to all of them. Especially because this is also the story that made me realize I'd written the entire crew into each oneshot – you just kinda have to squint and tip your head to find them.
> 
> Any resemblance of this story to any other similar reality TV series is entirely accidental.
> 
> Enjoy!

"Please." Sophie leaned forward attentively. "Take your time."

Hardison glared at her, but turned on his camera and perched behind his current favorite laptop to take notes as well.

"Start with your name," he suggested. "Where we are. The basics."

Sophie sent Hardison a look that suggested she would have kicked him if she weren't on the sofa beside the client.

"Maggie." The petite blonde woman cleared her throat and forced her fingers to be still in her lap. "I'm Maggie and this is the Clarksburg Historical Society, housed in the old Clark Mansion. It was built in 1852 by the town founder, Josiah Clark, for his family."

"You're doing great," Sophie told her. "Now, let's start with what you have personally experienced."

Hardison gave a nod – this was one point on which he and Sophie always agreed. First figure out exactly what the client _thinks_ happened. Then, and only then, document the stories and legends and rumors. Even if the client is the one who tells those stories, getting their actual experience first tends to prevent overlap or imagining extra details to make their encounter match the legends.

"I was doing some paperwork in my office in the back. I heard a door slam."

"And were you alone at the time?"

"Yes." Maggie nodded. "I'd already locked up for the night and the security system was on. There was no one in the building but me."

"Okay." Sophie kept her voice low and coaxing. "Did anything happen after that?"

"Yes. I heard footsteps above my head."

"And what room would that have been?" Hardison asked.

"The Rose Room. It's directly above my office; I work out of what used to be the back parlor."

"So a door and footsteps." Sophie gave a delicate smile. "That's not too frightening, is it?"

Maggie didn't quite manage to return the smile. "I suppose."

"But that's not why we're here," Hardison put in.

Maggie shook her head. "No. I've worked in old buildings before. They creak and wood shifts and doorframes warp in cold weather. I wouldn't have thought twice about it. Except…"

Maggie fell still and looked at her hands.

"Where is your sister?" Sophie asked. "She's the one who had the more...difficult experience, right? I thought she was going to meet us here today as well."

Maggie dropped her eyes from them both and the camera. "She wasn't feeling well."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

Hardison waggled his eyebrows at Sophie. 'Not feeling well' could either mean 'scared half to death and refusing to have anything to do with the investigation' or it could mean 'unwilling to face a real interview.' Hardison had no doubt which he believed to be the case.

"Well, perhaps she'd be willing to talk to us tomorrow." Sophie smiled and Hardison bit back a comment. Sophie believed everyone was telling the truth, no matter how obvious it was they were lying – until she met them in person.

Then, it was a very different story.

If Hardison hadn't seen Sophie in action, cold-reading a fraud and taking him apart until he was nothing but a gibbering wreck, he'd have been out of this game a long time ago. Sophie was just so credulous about everybody and everything, in theory. But when she was face-to-face with someone or something, no matter how good a liar or actor or trick, nothing could fool her.

In four years, that was the strongest proof of all Hardison could document that Sophie was a true clairvoyant. She could see through living people in seconds and lay bare things there was no reasonable way for her to know about them.

Though it wasn't as if Hardison could conclusively prove she was equally able with the dead. Because he still, after four years, couldn't scientifically prove the dead were anything but dead.

Even though he knew better by four years of sometimes-terrifying experience.

It was supremely frustrating.

"I'll see if I can get her to change her mind tonight," Maggie said. "Maybe she'll feel better knowing you're here."

"We'll be here all night," Sophie said. "Though we'll be hoping to get some somewhat different visitors."

"Of course."

"Now." Sophie sat back. "Can you tell us some of the details of the history of the building, any tragedies or other significant events that might provide fuel for any entities which reside here?"

Hardison listened to the standard-fare tales of a murder-suicide, an abusive husband who might have hounded his frail wife to death, and, of course, the history of slaves and slave owners. Not one bit of it was unique or unusual, for which Hardison was grateful. If they did get anything here, that would mean it took no extraordinary tale of woe for the supernatural to manifest.

When Maggie finished recounting the normally gory tales of the house, Sophie gave Hardison a nod.

"I think that should give us enough to begin with for tonight."

Maggie frowned. "Don't you want a tour?"

Hardison shut off his cameras. "Nope. Sophie does better reading cold, and she doesn't necessarily want to know where to specific expect things to happen. If your sister had come and told us about her experience, that would be different, but without it, she'll just go in blind and see if the house fills in the gaps."

"Oh. Okay." Maggie held out a key ring. "I've left the alarm off for you tonight, and this is my spare set of master keys. The gold ones are all for the Clark Mansion itself and the rest of the original estate. The silver keys only open doors in the extension."

"And was the extension constructed on top of anything we should know about?" Sophie asked, glancing around. Hardison had barely spared a glance for the extra building that had been added as some kind of combination cafe, gift shop, tourist trap, meeting lodge, and education center. It was only a couple of decades old, supernaturally unimportant, and kind of boring besides.

"Nope. Some trees, maybe an old flower garden. That's why we put it here, away from the big house and barns and the slave quarters which we use for maintenance sheds."

"Excellent." Sophie rose and gestured for Maggie to stand as well. "Then I believe we will make this our headquarters for the evening. If you or your sister want to talk to us, please wait here. Once I begin working, I won't have my phone on my any longer."

Hardison hid a snicker. He would have his phone, of course, but he didn't work with hysterical clients. It was a rule.

Mostly because apparently he upset them.

"Well. I guess I'll be going. I'll talk to my sister and send her over if she feels up to it. Otherwise, I guess...have a good night?" Maggie's smile looked tentative and concerned.

Hardison gave her a thumbs-up. "Thanks! You go rest easy. We'll be just fine."

Sophie gave him that look again even though there was nothing objectionable in his statement. "Yes, of course we will. I'll call you tomorrow to come pick up your keys and so we can discuss anything we find."

Sophie escorted the woman from the building while Hardison started unpacking his equipment. He had several computers, a network of wireless cameras, and two body-cameras already charged and good to go. He didn't even look up when Sophie came back in.

"Do you want to walk the place with me?" she asked.

Hardison shook his head. "I took the official tour with that grumpy tour guide yesterday when I was taking some baselines and getting daytime footage. It's pretty boring."

Sophie smirked. "Compared to Winchester, you mean."

"Yeah, we are _never_ doing that one again. If I ever spend another six hours trapped in some godforsaken secret room _literally nobody alive_ knows exists, I am going to chuck all this stuff off the nearest bridge and take up cliff diving. Or maybe international crime. Something nice and safe and boring."

Sophie chuckled at him, and Hardison grinned back. That epic night was a joke now, but the only reason it could be a joke at all was because Sophie had been there to keep it from becoming a nightmare. Her warm voice on the phone, telling him to stay calm, that she would find him no matter what, that any spirits in the house were long since appeased and wouldn't trouble him, that she was _there –_ it had probably saved his sanity.

And if that weren't enough, when the secret door that latched from the outside (" _Who does that? Seriously?_ ") swung open at last, Sophie stood flanked by four frantic tour guides, one police officer with a search and rescue dog, and a pizza delivery guy bearing an anchovy and pineapple pizza just for him.

Sophie was _awesome_.

"All right. I'm going to begin my rounds."

Hardison held out his second body-camera. "In case anything gets going before me. I just need to run through my checks and then I can set up. I'm thinking I only need to hit five or six spots."

Sophie nodded and took the camera, expertly snapping it open and checking the battery level. "Meet me in the Rose Room when you're set up." She clipped it onto her jacket.

"Try not to make friends with any spirits before I can document it," Hardison said.

Sophie smiled. "It's hardly up to me, dear." And she swept out.

Hardison bent to his work, linking his computers and testing each of his cameras for both visuals and sound. He printed off his map of the mansion and surrounding grounds, marking in red pen where he'd be hanging his cameras for the evening. He mounted his own body-camera unit on his shoulder and switched it on.

"Testing. Clark Mansion, Hardison mobile."

The feedback on his laptop was coming in just fine.

Something moved at a window and Hardison looked up. "Sophie?"

"Hello?"

Hardison spotted an unfamiliar head and shoulders out the window on the door. He crossed to push it open. "Can I help you?"

The young woman had delicate features and blonde hair, longer than Maggie's but just as straight. She shifted from foot to foot nervously.

"Oh. You must be Maggie's sister, right? Come on in. You decided to come talk to us after all. That's cool." He gestured for her to pass him. "We'll just go get Sophie and then we can talk."

"Okay." She looked around the room with wide eyes.

"Don't worry." Hardison didn't want to make her feel crowded or any more spooked than she already was, so he kept his distance and maintained an easy smile. "You'll be safe with us."

She nodded without really turning towards him. Her eyes were fixed on his setup of cameras and computers. "Is this what you use to find ghosts?"

"Yep." Hardison strode over to his table to clean up a bit of his mess. The laptops would stay out, but he packed the cameras into the bag he'd carry them in until he mounted them around the house. "Nothing fancy, even though there's a lot of it."

"Why don't you use all the other stuff the people on TV use?" she asked. "Electro-magnetic something? Or heat-sensing cameras?"

"You watch those shows?" Hardison tried not to look too interested. If she were a ghost-story buff, or just into reality TV, that might impact how she had interpreted whatever had happened to her.

"Sometimes." She shrugged. "Maggie has a little TV in her office. It's boring just hanging out when she's leading tours around."

"I bet."

"So why don't you use all that stuff, then?"

Hardison snorted. "If ghosts are real, they can show themselves on a standard camera and talk into a normal microphone. All the rest of that garbage is just coddling the spooky divas." He shrugged. "Besides, most of that equipment is not designed to do what people use it for. If we're going to scientifically, absolutely, irrefutably prove the existence of ghosts, we need to do it by the book. On real equipment. Unmodified."

"Oh." Maggie's sister smiled. "That's smart, actually."

"Thanks." Hardison went back to the pile of spare cords that had gotten tangled _again_. Why didn't anything ever stay nice and neat no matter how many zip ties he used?

"Maggie said there were two of you coming?" she said.

"Yeah." Hardison stuffed his cords into a big canvas bag and figured he'd unwind them later. "Sophie's already heading into the mansion. Want to go see her?"

"Sure."

He grabbed the camera bag, careful not to sling it over the same shoulder with his body-cam, and walked with her out into the fading daylight. It was warm for autumn, but night came quickly this time of year, and Hardison knew within half an hour he'd need the flashlight in his pocket to mount the outdoor cameras.

They were most of the way up the path to the Clark Mansion when Maggie's sister cleared her throat. "Don't go in the basement tonight."

Hardison raised an eyebrow. "That bad?"

"Yeah." She didn't meet his eyes. "It's still locked, but he's angry. Don't go down there. Okay?"

Hardison was about to tell her that he couldn't promise as much, that, in fact, the basement was first on their list of places to go after Sophie was done meditating in the Rose Room, when he heard a scream. Panicked, breathy, guttural, and _Sophie_.

Hardison dropped his bag of cameras and started to run.

He thought he yelled something to Maggie's sister about going home, about getting out of here; he meant to, anyway. But his thoughts were mostly lost in a haze of fear and the pounding of his feet on the wooden porch, through the door that slammed after him, and up the carpeted stairs to the second floor.

"Sophie!"

He threw open the door with the little placard he'd seen on the tour the day before.

Sophie was crouched on the floor in the middle of the room, screaming and crying.

Hardison dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around the woman who was sister and mom and friend and ghost-hunting partner all in one. "Sophie, please. Come back. I'm here. It's Alec. Come on, girl. Don't leave me."

Sophie shuddered against him, screams coming with her breath.

"Don't get lost out there, Soph. Follow me back. Come on. You can do it."

There was an almost mechanical twitch that went through her whole body, and then Sophie tightened her fingers around Hardison's sleeves and buried her face in his neck. She sobbed just once, then took a slow, deep breath.

"Sophie?"

"I'm...I'm all right. Give me a moment."

Hardison just held onto her. He could never cease being utterly amazed by her courage. She who went where nightmares and devils feared to tread and did not emerge unscathed, could compose herself in a matter of moments. What Hardison himself had experienced was bad enough – what Sophie felt being _inside_ all that madness was an order of magnitude worse.

And yet she calmed and looked up at him with fierce, determined eyes.

"So...what are we dealing with here?" Hardison asked.

"There are several presences here in the house and on the grounds. Most of them are benign or at least inactive. But the one…"

"Let me guess. In the basement?"

"Yes." Sophie shivered, but betrayed nothing in her face. "That one."

Without letting go – Sophie always craved the grounding of a person's presence and touch after being so caught up in the minds and memories and emotions of ghosts – Hardison pulled a notebook from his back pocket. He flipped to his notes from the tour he'd taken.

"I didn't catch his name, but that's the murder-suicide guy, right? Killed his brother in cold blood and then put the business end of a shotgun in his mouth? Which, by the way, I saw a replica of the gun and that takes _talent_. I mean, either that dude had arms like an orangutan or he was some kinda wizard because…" He trailed off. "Anyway."

"Yes." Sophie swallowed again and her voice regained some strength. "He...he's very active."

"Any idea why?"

Sophie shook her head. "Not exactly. But...it appears he's not the only one waking up and starting to act."

Her eyes drifted to the doorway that led back into the hall.

Hardison turned, and only years of practice kept him from bolting then and there – or wetting himself.

A dark-haired man stood in the doorway. A man whose form looked solid and yet every living instinct in Hardison's body told him it wasn't. A man whose eyes were shadowed and whose exact position flickered slightly, like a candle in a breeze.

Hardison's mouth went try. "Is that…?"

"No." Sophie kept her eyes on the ghost, but pulled herself from Hardison's grip. "No, he's...connected. But not the…"

Hardison watched Sophie stand, stretching her hands out. He got to his feet behind her, ready to catch her if she fell, but always keeping the ghost where he and his camera could see it clearly.

"Brother," she said softly. "Your brother is the one in the basement."

The ghost made no move, but the air suddenly filled with a dark chill.

"You're the one he killed."

Hardison shifted his attention to her. "Do you know why?"

Sophie's eyes were closed and her face was tight with concentration. "I...I can't quite...it isn't very clear. There was some kind of misunderstanding. A disagreement. He blamed you for...something. And…"

Sophie pulled both hands to her chest, clutching at her shirt.

"You were both in so much pain."

Hardison edged sideways so the camera could see them both. "So...something bad happened. And basement guy blamed this ghost for it and killed him. And then basement guy found out it wasn't his fault, maybe?"

"Yes." Sophie's hands eased away from her chest and extended towards the ghost once more. "Yes, I think so. I think...they lost someone they loved. A...not a daughter. Maybe a sister?"

Hardison watched them both, Sophie and the dark-haired ghost, and counted two minutes in his head before he cleared his throat.

"So...are we good, then? I mean, that's a full, stable manifestation. Best one we've ever seen."

Sophie opened her eyes and shook her head at him. "No. I have to go down there."

Hardison frowned. "Nuh-uh. We've got a perfectly good, non-scary-as-hell ghost up here." Then, more seriously, "Soph, what he did to you…"

"I know. But I have to try."

She turned back to the ghost in the doorway, but he was gone.

"Stay here if you want to, Hardison." And she set off down the hall.

Hardison stumped after her. "Oh, sure. Let's go down into the lair of a _murderer_ who made you almost _lose your mind_ and try it _again_ in a dark basement where people _died_. Yeah. Should be fun." He turned his camera slightly so he could speak to it directly. "If this ever becomes some kind of 'found footage' thing, I _better_ be getting a posthumous Nobel for proving the existence of ghosts who _rip people to shreds_."

Somehow, Hardison wasn't even surprised when they reached the door to the basement in the back hall and it stood open. Waiting.

"Horror movie clichés, here we come," Hardison grumbled. He turned on his flashlight and followed Sophie into the darkness.

The basement was relatively large for a house of its size, and much deeper than Hardison had expected – it wasn't on the tour for obvious reasons. It was also empty, with a dirt floor and just a few odds and ends and wooden bits spread around.

Sophie started walking for a deep depression on one side, probably an old potato pit. Hardison stayed close, watching their feet. The last thing he wanted was to have one or both of them go sliding down into a hole and break an ankle or something. At that point, just sell the rights to Stephen King and be done with it.

But Sophie stopped at the edge of the pit.

"He's here."

And Hardison was _swamped_ in waves of terror and malice and hatred and guilt and sorrow and more hatred. They broke over him like water and then filled him up like poison, creeping into his chest and his thoughts until he vacillated between killing rage and unfathomable grief and crushing guilt.

It took a pain in his throat for Hardison to realize that he was the one screaming now, and that he was curled up on the ground with his hands over his ears.

And then there was an icy touch at his side. He looked up and thought he saw the face of the ghost from upstairs. Just as quickly as it appeared, the ghost vanished again, but Hardison could think clearly even if his limbs felt numb and strange.

Sophie was sitting on the edge of the pit, rocking herself back and forth and crying again. But her hands were out to her sides and between the gulps of breath, Hardison realized she was singing.

_Thou wilt come no more, gentle Annie_

_Like a flower, thy spirit did depart_

It was creaky and a little out of tune, and Hardison found tears on his cheeks without knowing why he was crying too.

And then a monster climbed out of the pit.

It was black and shaggy, hunched and huge. Even in the beam of Hardison's flashlight which had rolled away when he collapsed, there was nothing but shadow and darkness. The scent of blood and something foul filled the air, pouring off it.

"Sophie." Hardison meant to shout it, but it came out of him as a whisper.

Sophie, if she noticed either of them, did not stop.

_Thou art gone, alas, like the many_

_That have bloomed in the summer of my heart_

The monster crouched right in front of Sophie and roared.

Hardison barely knew what he was doing, but he crawled forward, towards the nightmare, scraping his nails on the packed dirt of the floor.

"Leave her alone," he croaked. "Don't hurt her. She just wants to help you. Hell if I know why, you freaking mutant hairball."

Insulting it made him feel better, and he drew close enough that he could have latched onto Sophie if he dared.

But the years had taught Hardison that sometimes things needed to happen without his interference, and sometimes Sophie was the one who made them happen. And this, he knew in his bones, was one of those times.

_Shall we never more behold thee?_

_Never hear thy winning voice again?_

So he didn't touch her. But he faced down shadow and blackness because if he didn't, she would be alone with it. And no matter how scared he was – and he _was_ , this pair of pants would never be the same – he couldn't leave her to it.

If Sophie even knew he was there, she ignored him. But her voice rose up a little stronger.

_When the springtime comes, gentle Annie_

_When the wild flowers are scattered o'er the plain?_

The monster loomed over them both. And Hardison could feel death stealing into his skin. Not just death – eternity. Suffering.

The chains of Hell oozing from the beast who could have guarded its gates.

And Hardison realized something. Maybe it was all that time with Sophie rubbing off on him, but he thought maybe it was just the humanity in him reacting to the lack of humanity in the thing before him.

"You're not damned unless you want to be," he said. And with the saying of it, he knew it was true. "You've been stuck here all this time because your feelings are keeping you here. Aren't they?"

_We have roamed and loved mid the bowers_

_When thy downy cheeks were in thy bloom_

There was a crashing sound behind him. Hardison didn't intend to turn and look – until he felt a stabbing pain in his side. _Then_ he looked.

The wooden debris was flying – and some of it was close enough to strike.

Hardison put his hand to his side and felt blood where a jagged piece of a board had torn through his shirt to his skin.

Sophie hissed in sudden pain as what looked like part of a chair slammed into her, and it left a few pieces of wood embedded in her arm and shoulder when it fell away.

But she choked out the next words anyway.

_Now I stand alone 'mid the flowers_

_While they mingle their perfumes o'er thy tomb_

Hardison felt the cold touch again and saw the same face from upstairs beside him. And this time the other ghost stayed.

"Help us," he begged. "It's your brother, right? Help us save him. Or save us. Please!"

And Sophie moved one of her outstretched arms to Hardison. He latched onto her hand, and held his other out for the ghost.

A board came and slammed into his back, knocking the wind out of him. But he held on.

And the ghost wrapped misty fingers around his wrist.

_Shall we never more behold thee?_

_Never hear thy winning voice again?_

Sophie squeezed Hardison's hand just once, and swept her other hand, bleeding and splintered, into the center of the shadowy mass of grief and hate.

For a moment, it seemed that all the air in the room disappeared.

And then _something_ frizzled down Hardison's arm from the ghost, and he felt it shock into Sophie beyond him.

Every piece of wood in the room clattered to the ground.

The dark creature let out a sound that was partly a howl, partly a release, and the shadows began to unspin from its form, settling at last in the eyes of the most wasted and wretched looking being Hardison had ever seen in his life.

Sophie gasped and started to collapse. Hardison somehow got his body to move and wrapped himself around her as they both slid into the potato pit.

His brain wasn't working, he couldn't see or think, and he was bleeding and Sophie was worse.

But a different voice rose up to finish the song, light and sweet and almost giggling on the words.

_When the springtime comes, gentle Annie_

_When the wild flowers are scattered o'er the plain?_

"Hardison?"

Hardison opened his eyes at Sophie's voice. The light was much brighter, coming not from his flashlight, but from the open basement door.

"Alec? Are you okay?"

"I think I need to go to a hospital," he said, curling around his wound instinctively. "And you, too. You got…" He stopped.

His hand encountered unbroken skin at his side. Only a very little bit of dried, flaking blood and a very torn shirt remained as evidence of what had happened.

"I think," Sophie said, voice low and warm, "that they were grateful."

"You gonna tell me what all went down just now?"

Sophie smiled. "Probably. First, let's go get some breakfast."

" _Breakfast_?" Hardison stared at her. Then he stared at the light filtering down the open door. Sunlight. Daylight.

Hardison muttered to himself all the way out of the basement, through the mansion, and back to the visitors center where he dropped into a chair, not at all exhausted, not at all feeling as if he had spent the whole night curled up in a rocky potato pit, and thoroughly annoyed by every bit of it.

He was also annoyed to find his bag of equipment outside, damp with dew and sitting on the grass like a forgotten picnic basket. Sure, his stuff was waterproof, and he was glad it hadn't been stolen or lost, but there was something supremely unfair about the fact that his gear had spent a nice night under the stars and he ended up not-quite-dying in a hinky basement.

He did say, "On the plus side, I can't wait to see what footage I got!"

"If it is even half of what we saw," Sophie said, "we'll really have something this time."

"Excuse me?"

Sophie turned from where she had been digging in her bag for a bottle of water. "Oh, Maggie. Good morning!"

"How was your night?" Maggie asked, entering along with someone else. "You look...terrible."

"We had something of an adventure, yes," Sophie said. "But we're all right. And I think your ghosts won't trouble you much anymore."

"Oh." Maggie swallowed. "Well, my sister decided she felt up to telling you about her experience if you still want to hear it."

Hardison was mostly focusing on checking his body-cam for damage, but he waved a hand. "She came by last night, but we didn't really get a chance to talk. Sorry about scaring her off like that."

The blonde woman next to Maggie turned green and visibly trembled.

Maggie's eyes were huge. "Uh... _this_ is my sister. Tara. She was with me all night."

Hardison shook his head. "No _way_. That's not who came over last night. She was shorter and thinner and...and…" He stopped talking and wondered if his heart was about to stop beating as his whole body went cold.

Sophie took his hand, hers the only warm thing in the world.

"Hardison, dear. Have you looked at your footage yet?"

"N-no. Not yet." He grabbed his nearest laptop and pulled up the body-camera file from the previous night.

He watched himself testing it, the image wobbling as he moved around. Heard a tiny sound that might have been a "Hello?" Watched the image turn towards the door before approaching it, and a fuzzy figure visible through the window for just a few seconds.

And then there was nothing but static for the rest of the night.


End file.
